Journal of Environmental Protection, 2013, 4, 353-360 353 http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/jep.2013.44042 Published Online April 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/jep) On the Patterns of the Occurrence of Diarrheas in the Southern Benin Hervé Thierry Azonhè1*, R. Glèlè Kakaï2, Atidegla Capo Séraphin2, Kossi Euloge Agbossou2 1Department of Geography and Regional Development, Benin Scientific and Technical Research Center (CBRST), Cotonou, Benin; 2Faculty of Agronomic Sciences, University of Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Benin. Email: *
[email protected] Received November 6th, 2012; revised February 8th, 2013; accepted March 11th, 2013 Copyright © 2013 Hervé Thierry Azonhè et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT The present study focused on the analysis of the risk factors of diarrhea in Southern Benin. Data have been collected from 442 peasant households on the basis of a stratified random sampling method in the targeted communities, with information on the source of water provision, the location of the village, the usual defecation place, the site of refusing dumping and the presence of trash dump in the vicinity of the household. Data have been analyzed using descriptive statistics. In addition, analyses of variance and log-linear analyses have been applied to test the various factors in the outbreak of diarrheas. Results have allowed a hierarchical organization of the drinking water sources with regards to their use and to the cases of diarrheas (boreholes: p < 0.001; rainwater and territorial water: p < 0.001; wells: p = 0.547 and pipe-borne water: p = 0.277.